Last spring, I signed up with Interfaith Hospitality Network to be a mentor. I do not consider myself a religious person, but I don’t think that should matter — IHN is a well-run national organization that does a lot of good in our community. With the help of volunteer congregations, IHN provides housing for homeless families during a period of recovery and helps them transition back to stability. Mentors support the families after they regain housing, helping them navigate life decisions and maintain their independence. Most families that IHN sees consist of single mothers with children.
IHN has not yet been able to find me an appopriate mentee, in part because I asked that I not mentor someone who has significantly more life experience than I do. I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable coaching a 40-year-old woman with four children on how to live! However, the program has recently begun to accept single, childless women, and it’s possible that one of them will be a good fit, or that a young, recent mother will come into the program.
Still, I’ve been active with the organization thanks to my experience with computers. IHN wanted to outfit their two main centers, one in Tremont and one on Warrensville Road, with computers so that the clients could develop computer skills while in residence. However, they didn’t have any computers to spare for the project. Luckily, I had recently happened upon the website of Computers Assisting People, a local non-profit that takes in donated computers and outfits them for other local non-profits. IHN contacted CAP, and CAP provided them with four computers to install at their centers for their clients.
I went in a couple weeks ago to set up the computers in Tremont and did the computers on Warrensville this past week. These are old computers, running Windows 2000, some with only 8-gig hard drives (mon dieu!). One of the computers is the very first computer I ever had all to myself, an IBM Aptiva circa 1998, complete with a four-pages-per-minute Canon printer. It had going on 10 years of dust crowded around its power button, and I had to open the entire case to clean it out. If you ever wonder why IBM stopped making personal hardware, here’s why: the case takes six hands to open, and the screws take Barbie-doll-sized hands to replace. Remember that this computer is a contemporary of the iMac G3, the cute little egg-shaped all-in-one Macintosh in pretty colors. IBM was dead in the water.
The Gateway also has power-button issues in that its button is just plain broken. Apparently these computers weren’t intended to be turned on as many times as they have been. I’ve got the Aptiva working fine, but I’m going to have to MacGyver something up for the Gateway. Still, once on, they run perfectly, and broken power buttons are bupkis when the computers are free.
The next step: work with another volunteer to create a computer-orientation program to teach clients the basics of word-processing and other key job skills. The computers don’t have Office, but they do have WordPad, which will at least get us started. IHN is looking into their options for outfitting the computers with Office, and we’re going to hook them up to the internet if at all possible. Once we get the curriculum down, we’ll probably do instructional sessions once a week, progressing as a family spends their six or so weeks with IHN.
I don’t know exactly what this project will bring, but this is the kind of work I was looking for when I signed up with IHN: hands-on do-gooding, putting my effort where my mouth is, investing time and energy directly into a constructive project that will benefit my neighbors and the Cleveland community as a whole. I will keep you posted on our progress.
